via Reuters and the South China Morning Post comes reports of what could be the largest data breach in the People's Republic of China on record. Pointing to what is being described as a 'vast surveillance operation'. Surprised? Don't be fooled as there is nothing new under the sun, given the country's predeliction for human micro-manipulation that can be traced back in relatively recent times (1958-1961) to Mao Zedong'sCultural Revolution (and of course, to the previous five millenia of Chinese history)...H/T

Whilst two wrongs do not make the third right, Glenn Greenwald'ssuperb screed at The Intercept - details the latest outrage perpetrated by the National Enquirer, my go-to-choice for picking up droppings, as it were. In this case the recepient of same is none-other-than Jeffrey Preston Bezos, of which,in a similar vein (so to speak) also happens to bring to public scrutiny the enormous surviellance apparatus Amazon Web Services is building.

Something of a Evil Equation, when both sides of same are nearly equal (hence the term equation...) in their cumulative evilness (arguably a surveillance state is logarithmically to the power of 2 on the evil power gradient a greater threat than a single individuals' privacy breach). Bottom Line: No one should be subject to the invasion of her/his privacy, nor should anyone be forced to live in a surveillance state managed by any governement, NGO or commercial entity such as Amazon Web Services.

"On Thursday, Bezos published emails in which the Enquirer’s parent company explicitly threatened to publish intimate photographs of Bezos and his mistress, which were apparently exchanged between the two through their iPhones, unless Bezos agreed to a series of demands involving silence about the company’s conduct." - via the inimitable Glenn Greenwald from his superlative piece at The Intercept

"Aaron Peskin, a member of the city’s Board of Supervisors, proposed the ban Tuesday as part of a suite of rules to enhance surveillance oversight. In addition to the ban on facial recognition technology, the ordinance would require city agencies to gain the board’s approval before buying new surveillance technology, putting the burden on city agencies to publicly explain why they want the tools as well as the potential harms." - via Gregory Barber, writing at Wired regarding the proposed *ban

"...the company had its access to the Facebook and Instagram APIs shut off Friday after the Wall Street Journal queried Facebook about Crimson Hexagon’s contracts with the US government, a Russian not-for-profit with ties to the Kremlin, and the Turkish government." - viaThe Guardian'sOlivia Solon and Julia Carrie Wong

"Superior Court Judge G. Helen Whitener ruled earlier this year that the city improperly withheld 11 documents from the American Civil Liberties Union. On Monday, Whitener issued a ruling tallying the cost:
▪ $182,340 for violations of the Public Records Act.
▪ $115,530 for attorney fees and other costs."
via The News Tribunereporter Kate Martin

As an FYI, The TPD is an excellent organization, and highly respected, both here in the State of Washington and throughout the country. - mh

Sapna Maheshwari, reporting at the New York Times, exposes the nefarious surveillance practices of certain miscreant mobile game developers with a sui generis litany of sordid misdoings...

'“We have to be really careful as we have more devices capturing more information in living rooms and bedrooms and on the street and in other people’s homes that the public is not blindsided and surprised by things,” said Dave Morgan, the founder and chief executive of Simulmedia, which works with advertisers on targeted TV ads. “It’s not what’s legal. It is what’s not creepy.”' - via Sapna Maheshwari, writing at the New York Times

Tracking, that is, with the assistance of Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC), that benevolent arbiter of all things computational... El Reg has conveniently provided a FAQ (direct from the chip fabricator) in their superlatively reported post. Today's Must Read.